The Austrian Economists Who Refuted Marx (and Obama)

The president of the United States has publicly declared that he knows the minimum wage any worker in the United States should earn as an hourly salary: $10.10. Why not $11.11 or $9.99 has been left a mystery. But what the president is sure of is that businessmen clearly are stonehearted money grabbers exploiting some of their workers by not paying them the real value of what their labor is worth.

Left unspoken in Obama’s assertion of knowing what a minimum “fair” or “just” wage should be in America is the ghost of a thinker long thought to have been relegated to the dustbin of history: Karl Marx (1818-1883).

Marx’s Labor Theory of a Worker’s Value

Marx’s conception of the unjust “wage slavery” that businessmen imposed on their workers became the premise and the rallying cry that resulted in the communist revolutions of the twentieth century, with all their destruction and terror.

Marx insisted that the “real value” of anything produced was determined by the quantity of labor that had gone into its manufacture. If it takes four hours of labor time to produce a pair of shoes and two hours of labor time to prepare and bake a cake, then the just ratio of exchange between the two commodities should be one pair of shoes in trade for two cakes. Thus, the quantities of the two goods would exchange at a ratio representing comparable amounts of labor time to produce them.

If a worker’s labor produced, say, three pairs of shoes during a twelve-hour workday, then the worker had a just right to the ownership of the three pairs of shoes his labor had produced, so he might exchange it for the productions of other workers from whom he wanted to buy.

But, Marx insisted, the businessman who hired the worker did not pay him a wage equal to the value of the three pairs of shoes the laborer had produced. Simply because the businessman owned the factory and machines as private property with which the worker produced those shoes, and without access to which the worker would be left out in the cold to starve, the employer demanded a portion of the worker’s output.

The employer paid him a wage only equal to, say, two of the pairs of shoes, thus “stealing” a part of the worker’s labor. Hence, in Marx’s mind, the market value of the third pair of shoes that the businessman kept for himself out of the worker’s work was the source of his profit, or the net gain over the costs of hiring the worker.

Here is the origin of the notion of “unearned income,” the idea of income not from working and producing, but from, well, simply owning a private business in which the workers who really did all the work were employed.

The businessman, you see, does nothing. He lives off the labor of others, while sitting up in his office, with his feet on the desk, smoking a cigar (when it was still “politically correct” to do so). It is not surprising given this reasoning about work, wages and profit that a president of the United States then says to businessmen, “You really did not make it.”

Carl Menger and the Personal Value of Things

Karl Marx died in 1883, at the age of 64. A decade before his death, in the early 1870s, his labor theory of value had been overturned by a number of economists. The most important of them was the Austrian economist, Carl Menger (1840-1921), in his 1871 book, Principles of Economics.

Menger explained that the value of something was not derived from the quantity of labor that had been devoted to its manufacture. A man might spend hundreds of hours making mud pies on the seashore, but if no one has any use for mud pies, and therefore does not value them enough to pay anything for them, then those mud pies are worthless.

Value like beauty, as the old adage says, is in the eyes of the beholder. It is based on the personal, or “subjective,” use and degree of importance that someone has for a commodity or service to serve some end or purpose that he would like to satisfy.

Goods do not have value because of the amount of labor devoted to their production. Rather, a certain type of labor skill and ability may have value because it is considered useful as a productive means to achieve a goal that someone has in mind.

And furthermore, the value of things decreases as our supply of them increases, because we apply each additional quantity of a good at our disposal to a purpose less important than the purpose for which previously acquired units of that good were used.

As I am adding shirts to my wardrobe, each extra shirt generally serves a use for that type of clothing less important to me than the shirts I had purchased earlier. Economists call this the “diminishing marginal utility of goods.”

And people wonder why cops, who are often former soldiers, are increasingly aggressive and even violent. (E)

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About one in five US soldiers have been found to have a common mental illness such as depression or panic disorder upon enlisting in the Army, according to a new study.

A second study showed that over eight percent of soldiers had contemplated suicide and 1.1 percent had attempted suicide, researchers found via confidential surveys and interviews with 5,428 soldiers at Army bases across the US.

The studies’ results were published on Monday in JAMA Psychiatry. Experts say the findings show a weakness in recruiting processes. Army applicants are asked about their psychiatric pasts in evaluations, while those with certain disorders or a history of suicide attempts are often kept from entering the service.

Another separate study of one million soldiers from 2004 to 2009 found that those who had been deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq had an increased rate of suicide.

The studies are the first released as part of a large research initiative that began in 2009 by the Army and the National Institute of Mental Health in response to a spate of suicides in the armed forces. In 2011, a representative sample of soldiers was assessed for eight common psychiatric disorders.

Researchers found that soldiers interviewed had joined the Army with higher rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), panic disorder, and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) than the general population.

“The question becomes, ‘How did these guys get in the Army?'” Ronald Kessler, a Harvard University sociologist and leader of one of the studies, said to the Los Angeles Times.

If there was ever any doubt that the formerly “Great” Britain of today has devolved into a stinkhole of authoritarianism – a proposition I advanced in a recent column – it has been dispelled by the news that the British authorities justified the detainment of David Miranda by claiming that, in transporting materials released by Edward Snowden through Heathrow airport, he was engaged in a “terrorist” act.

So…once more we come to Guy Fawkes day. The day celebrated and, of late, remembered as a result of the 2005 movie ” V For Vendetta“. My question to you is this. Can any of you think of a reason to protest anything your government is doing currently?

Obviously I am not advocating any form of violence against individuals or even infrastructure as that path becomes self-defeating rather quickly. What I am saying is this. Find a way to voice your anger. Write on your blog. Add something to your Facebook page. Hell-send a letter to the editor of your local newspaper but do something.

The Governments of the world are in direct opposition now to the interests of the people who live on this planet. It is time we stood up, for those who have not been doing so, and let them know we know!!! The truth of the matter is that they are a bunch of rats that live in the dark and only attack when they can gang up on those who have become separated from the crowd. The young, the poor, the aged, the disabled.

When the rest of us choose to become protective of those who cannot protect themselves and say NO MORE, things will begin to change. One example where people can stand up is in Colorado where this tax on cannabis will put the use of pot back into government control and will push the people who truly need it, or just want to use it for their own pleasure to a place where it is financially beyond their reach. A new black market will then start up and the drug war will continue.

Whatever the cause you choose, choose something today to speak out against. The Wars in…well where aren’t we fighting wars now? Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, several African nations and soon Iran. How about the NSA, CIA, TSA, DHS ect. ect. Or Fracking for gas or Fuckishima (It was deliberate). Or the fact that our President is quoted in a new book as saying he is “good at killing”.

Anyway, I am sure that everyone can come up with at least one thing that really bothers them about the US Government or whatever government claims to rule over them. Speak out. Be An Anarchist for a day!

Anarchism is a set of political philosophies that hold the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, or harmful

Speaking in South Korea on Tuesday the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey noted that the United States might begin training a “moderate opposition” in the Syrian Civil War. General Dempsey further noted the United States’s “incredible experience” when it comes to training foreign fighters and hinted at possible past successes. Herein lies the problem. While the United States’s record on training foreign forces in times of conflict is certainly “incredible” it is anything but positive. A simple review of recent history can demonstrate this.

Like this:

The US military as well as other departments within the federal government are developing systems that can do this and more.

They have developed systems that can place thoughts and images in a person’s mind and even speak so the person hears voices inside their head.

These devices were patented in the 70’s and 80’s and are now being deployed against a select few experimentally but will soon be used more extensively. Google ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) weapons for more info.

This is just another in a long line of studies that invalidate the arguments that the mind control propagandists have used to put fear in people about drugs in general and Cannabis in particular. They’re going down hard. (E)

Bloomberg needs to be locked up himself. Not in jail but in a mental institution. He has proven that he is a sociopath over and over. Put him on meds or do some good ole fashioned EST-sorry that’s barbaric but I am thinking of it in terms of burning out this guys brain so he can’t continue to hurt anyone else. Fortunately he leaves office soon, hopefully he will disappear from the political landscape for good. (E)

In this morning’s John Gambling radio show, Mayor Michael Bloomberg criticized Davis v. City of New York, a putative class action lawsuit filed by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) and co-counsel the Legal Aid Society on behalf of plaintiffs challenging the NYPD’s policy and practice of unlawfully stopping and arresting public housing residents and their guests for trespassing. Rather than addressing the overwhelming evidence that thousands of innocent people have been stopped – and sometimes arrested – for trespassing in public housing apartments, however, Mayor Bloomberg instead suggested that residents and guests should be “fingerprinted” before entering their own homes.

“Mayor Bloomberg’s derogatory statements about public housing residents are an outrage,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, LDF’s president and director-counsel. “Families live in public housing apartments, not criminals. Public housing residents, as well as their friends and family members visiting them, deserve the…

It’s a small detail, in the general scheme of things, but one indicative of a troubling recent trend: when Congress voted on reauthorization of the Patriot Act, in 2011, the administration sent summaries [.pdf] to the House intelligence committee describing – without going into too much detail – the data dragnet conducted by the NSA under section 215. “We believe that making this document available to all members of Congress, as we did with a similar document in December 2009, is an effective way to inform the legislative debate about the reauthorization of Section 215,” read the cover letter accompanying the documents. Apparently Rep. Mike Rogers, the neocon tool who heads up the committee, didn’t agree: the summaries were never seen outside the committee.

‘Bout says it all…Not that Miranda rights had much impact on a large percentage of people anyway since most people don’t know enough to keep their mouths shut! Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever ad infinitum speak to law enforcement except to identify yourself and then only if you are being detained! Know what your rights are and see to it that you make sure they are not infringed. It is not up to them. It is up to you! (E)

The following was recorded prior to the judge’s decision in Manning’s case but since most people do not understand the implications of the case and the law involved that influenced Manning in the first place it is an important video. (E)

Stefan Molyneux breaks down the truth about the Bradley Manning trial and situation.

Always, Always,ALWAYS get a second opinion! And do some research before you jump into chemo or radiation as well. (E)

July 25, 2013 by: Ethan A. Huff
(NaturalNews) If you or someone you know has been diagnosed with cancer, you may want to
get a second opinion before agreeing to proceed with treatment, especially if you plan to opt for
a conventional chemotherapy or radiation protocol. A Houston-area woman recently learned this
the hard way after agreeing to undergo eight rounds of chemotherapy treatment over the course of
seven months, only to learn in the end that she never even had cancer in the first place.
Herlinda Garcia, a 54-year-old woman from Victoria, Texas, is still reeling with bouts of anxiety
and depression as a result of her misdiagnosis, which conventional chemoQuack doctors insisted
was stage four terminal breast cancer. As it turned out, a chemoQuack by the name of Dr. Ahmad
Qadri misread Garcia’s lab results, which ultimately sent her down the miserable road of being
chemically poisoned and having her health destroyed by chemotherapy.
As reported by KHOU.com in Houston, Garcia was misdiagnosed with breast cancer not long
after having a benign tumor removed from her left breast. The part-time civil process worker
was devastated by the news, but rather than seek a second opinion, she proceeded to sell most
of her belongings and begin regular chemotherapy treatments. She also created a “bucket list” of
activities and goals she wanted to achieve before dying.
“When you’re told you have stage four terminal cancer, that’s it,” Garcia is quoted as saying to
KHOU.com. “I put trust in the doctor.”
This is, of course, to be expected, as the population at large has been trained to trust what their
doctors say without looking into the matter themselves, or bothering to seek third-party advice.
And while Garcia is obviously not to be blamed for her misdiagnosis — who would ever conceive
that it might be possible to receive a false terminal illness diagnosis? — her experience serves as
an example to others about the fallibility of the conventional medicine model.
“Everything was swollen,” recalls Garcia about how the needless chemotherapy treatments
destroyed her health. “I lost my eyebrows, my eyelashes. It’s really hard. I can’t explain how I felt.
It’s like I was in a dream. I wanted to give up on everything.”
Worse than cancer: Chemotherapy for nonexistent condition caused lasting
damage
When Garcia was later admitted to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston (the Quack
Capital of the world) due to perpetual anxiety and depression symptoms, initial scans revealed
that she did not actually have breast cancer. And further investigation confirmed her worst
nightmare — Garcia never had breast cancer at all, and Dr. Qadri, who is now dead, had made a
huge mistake with her diagnosis.
“I was happy, but at the same time, I had that anger,” recalls Garcia about how she felt upon
learning the news. “The damage had been done.”

Not surprisingly, Garcia sued for damages and won. But a Victoria County court awarded her a
measly $367,500 in damages, according to KHOU.com, which is hardly an adequate remedy to
cover both the costs of her treatments and the lasting pain and suffering she has endured. If she
could do it all over again, Garcia would have immediately sought a second opinion so as to avoid
the horrors she endured.
“I know I’m never going to feel the same because of what I went through,” added Garcia to
reporters. “It changed my life… I don’t wish this on anybody.”

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